


i will follow you into the dark

by ladyfriday



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Military, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, CIA agent!Clarke, bellarke AU, sniper!Bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:56:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3973765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyfriday/pseuds/ladyfriday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’ll come back,” she says. She believes it. Because it’s Clarke, he believes it too.</p><p>At first, they were Captain and Agent. Then Blake and Griffin. Now Bellamy and Clarke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i will follow you into the dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [candid59](https://archiveofourown.org/users/candid59/gifts).



> Most people don't understand that I'm a crazy neurotic mess 99% of the time, especially when it comes to my writing. The person who bears the brunt of this is the greatest beta reader of all time, [candid59](cachekakusu.tumblr.com). She has talked me off of way too many ledges to count, and has stood by me through some of the most intense bouts of writers block I've ever had. I could not have done this writing thing had it not been for her support from the very first. This is for the best partner in crime I could've asked for.
> 
> Happy birthday Cam!

He doesn’t flinch when the needle slices through his flesh. Not a wince escapes him as the thread is dragged through the bleeding wound on his abdomen. He prides himself on this; on his ability to stay stoic through any amount of pain. He is a rock; always steady. He could be bleeding from ten different bullet wounds, but give him a rifle and a rooftop and he would still bring down his mark. Clarke joked once, that the world could be collapsing around him, and he’d stay where he was, perched on the roof of some abandoned building, trying to find a clear shot.

Her golden hair is tied away from her face, pulling at the skin around her forehead. A stony silence fills the room. Exhaling deeply, he looks up into the light directly overhead, but looks away when it burns spots into his vision.

Clarke’s lips are pressed into a stiff line. When she’s done with the sutures, she plasters a bandage over it, pulls off her gloves and gets up. Scribbling something in a binder, she closes it, sets it on the nearby table with a loud thud.

“So, how long are you going to be mad at me this time?” he drawls. She isn’t in the mood for jokes. He knows it. If it hadn’t been for the bit of morphine she’d slipped him, he would’ve been just as tense.

But he’s a little fuzzy, and it all feels like déjà vu. He remembers seeing her like this. So stiff and somber, unwilling to budge from her rules. Just as she had been two years ago, when she crashed into his life and turned it upside down.

Things have changed. She has become more laissez-faire. He has become less. Or perhaps they’ve just come to an understanding. Things work better when they stand together and not apart. They know that now.

Clarke stills. Doesn’t answer, but she doesn’t leave. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees her clench her hands into fists at her sides.

“It had to be done, Princess,” he continues, biting back a groan as he pushes himself into a sitting position on the narrow cot.

“You had orders, Captain,” she snaps. “And for gods’ sake don’t move around. I don’t want to have to redo your stitches.”

It’s this that makes him wince. At the beginning, they were Captain and Agent . But now, after everything they’ve seen, everything they’ve faced together, he is Bellamy. Blake when they’re with the others. But behind closed doors, he’s Bellamy. It’s  _Bellamy_  she moans at night when she’s in his arms, sharing his cramped bunk.

She’s furious with him. He hates it. 

“ _I_  was in the field,” he crosses his arms, “There were civilians. I wasn’t about to risk their lives just so your people could torture some names out of this guy!”

He regrets it instantly. Clarke slaps her hands onto the table. Her laugh is harsh and disbelieving, and he gulps nervously when she whirls around and pins him with her icy eyes. Boots thumping against the concrete floor, she slams the door shut and locks it. Out of habit, mostly. They don’t need to do it now. Not when it’s just the two of them left in this tomb that serves as the headquarters for their operation.

“Torture some names out of the guy?” Clarke hisses, “Are you serious? Have you been doing this for a week? A day?”

“He was a suicide bomber,” the floor is cold beneath his bare feet when he swings his legs over the cot’s edge. The cuts on his torso scream as he moves. He doesn’t care. “A bottom feeder. He would have no intel to give you.”

“You don’t know that!” she pulls the elastic out of her hair, sending her golden locks tumbling over her shoulders, “Your mission was to bring someone in. Alive!”

“I had a shot,” he runs his fingers through his hair, “I took it.”

“Don’t give me that. You’re the best sniper the rangers have seen in decades. You could’ve gone non-lethal,” she shrugs, “You just chose not to.”

“Are you not listening?” he growls, “If I waited for a non-lethal shot, I risked letting him finish his mission!”

He has to stop to catch his breath. “You would’ve made the same choice if you were there.”

Clarke’s boots pound against the floor as she paces the length of the room. She brings her nails to her mouth, starts chewing. He remembers her telling him one night as they lay in the dark, her head pillowed on his shoulder, that she’d had a terrible nail-biting habit as child. Her way of coping, she’d said with a dry laugh. He had wanted to ask with what? But the moment passed and his question was left hanging. Unspoken, unanswered.

Her hands are shaking, her skin bears an unnatural pallor. She’s rattled, he realizes. His stomach churns.

“What’s wrong?”

“Fox is gone,” she croaks, “They’re torturing them, and when they’re done, they’re tossing them away. Executing them like they’re cattle.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, scrubs his hands over his face.  _Not Fox._  She’d been one of the younger ones, the ones who shouldn’t have been there. One of the ones who had joined up because she had no better options. His mother’s words ring in his ears:

_You serve your country, but at what cost?_

“We’ll get the others out,” he says, “We will. We have to.”

“I have nothing left,” she whispers, “No intel. No way to get a man inside. No more cards to play. It’s just you now. You and me.”

“We’ll find a way,” he says, wrapping her trembling hands in his own, pulling her against his chest. Holding her as she shakes. “We’ll get backup.”

She shakes her head. “I tried. I called and called, pulled string after string, but they won’t do anything.”

When she laughs, it’s a bitter, tortured sound. He thinks back to the fresh faced, wide-eyed girl she had been when she arrived with her shiny machines and CIA geniuses. That girl’s gone, he thinks. The war snuffed her out.  

“They’ll be tortured,” she wraps her arms around his torso and agony rips through him. For a moment, he’s sure he’ll pass out. But he doesn’t wince. Doesn’t even move. It’s this closeness he has with her that lets him do what he does every day. That lets him forget the blood that stains his hands. This closeness that he has never had with anyone, not even Octavia. It’s for this closeness that he knows what he must do next.

They would never be able to live with themselves if they didn’t do everything they could to get their people out.

“It’s ironic,” she says after a while, “There’s no extraction, because they know they’ll be able to withstand it. The torture, I mean.”

She isn’t asking him to do it. But they both know what must be done. “I’ll do it,” he says quietly. Then with more conviction; “I’ll get inside.”

“It’s risky, you don’t know the inside of the compounds. Not like I do.” she says.  _She doesn’t tell him not to go._

“I know,” he whispers, his voice hoarse, “So show me.”

“I could—”

He doesn’t need to hear it to know she’s about to volunteer herself. “They already know who you are. Besides,” he wraps a blonde curl around his finger and gives it a gentle tug, “you’re too inconspicuous.”

“I wish I could tell you not to go,” her voice cracks, “but it would be selfish.”

He shakes his head. “I would go even if you asked me to stay.” It’s a lie. He could be selfish. For her, he could be selfish. But she won’t ask. And he won’t stay.

“You’ll come back,” she says. She believes it. Because it’s Clarke, he believes it too.

Then there is only the sound of their thundering hearts. They need no words for what comes next. It’s a tradition. A ritual. Maybe even something of a superstition. It’s the feel of her skin against his, her fingerprints all over his body. It’s what keeps his hands steady through the chaos. It’s her touch that anchors him. It’s  _this_  that he’ll remember when he leaves. Bellamy puts his hands on her waist. She twines her arms around his neck. He hums. They sway.

It’s a wordless goodbye.

“You’re hurt,” she whispers in his ear, “You need to get back in bed.”

“A little longer,” he whispers back.  _Just a little longer._

When the sun comes up, they’ll be soldiers again. In the morning, there’ll be a mission. There’ll be blood and broken bones and  _death_. But in this moment, she is in his arms. It doesn’t matter that he is bare footed and bare chested with goose bumps dotting his freckled skin. He closes his eyes and breathes in her sweet orange scent. He is at peace. The moment is fleeting. An illusion. Even now, he can feel it slip through his fingers.

He can’t bring himself to care.

**Author's Note:**

> I miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight just turn this into the "pilot" for a larger story. In any case it will take some time. Got enough on my plate as it is, and I'm notoriously slow at updating. :(((
> 
> Thank you for reading! <33
> 
> \--[ladyfriday](evil-writer.tumblr.com)


End file.
